AOL CEO Tim Armstrong on Making the ‘Oath’: Yahoo, Mayer and AOL Stay Put
AOL(NYSE:AOL) and Yahoo(NASDAQ:YHOO) will become “Oath” after Verizon's $4.5 billion acquisition of Yahoo closes, but AOL chief Tim Armstrong told the FOX Business Network on Tuesday that Yahoo and AOL are not going away.
“The brands we have,” he said, “are some of the most powerful brands in the digital economy and not only are we going to keep them we are going to be investing in them.”
The re-branding, according to Armstrong, is an effort to tie global brands and values into one business.
“Oath is a commitment brand, it’s values-based,” he said, “It’s really a B2B [business to business] brand.”
He added, “It’s like Berkshire Hathaway. It’s a behind the scene brand that supports some of the largest digital brands in the world.”
Armstrong also pointed out that this was an opportunity to tell a “very big consumer story.” He said consumers can expect to see “massive investments” in Yahoo, AOL, Huffington Post, Tech Crunch, and Yahoo Finance.
“The economy is going from linear to a software based economy,” he said. “We are one of the largest players. We are going to reach 1.3 billion consumers a month with this collection of assets.”
Armstrong confirmed the re-branding in a Twitter post on Monday, but the new name did not go over well on social media.
@timarmstrongaol Hahaha you're serious? Oh god. You're serious.
— Jenny Burns (@msjennyburns) April 4, 2017
@timarmstrongaol Oath:meal did you really really think about the name? Please tell me its a late April's fool day joke.
— Leordanis Hernandez (@LeordanisHndez) April 3, 2017
In reaction, Armstrong said, “we care that people care.”
When asked about Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer’s role at “Oath,” he said Mayer is “committed to the next phase.”
“We are actively discussing, probably, announcements we will make towards the end of Q2 about what the [executive] structure is going to be and the people.”